Charles Bernigaud bought home a little more than postcards and stuffed koalas from his trip to Australia. Amongst his collection of souvenirs was a new love. “I discovered that sport [Australian Rules football] when I was in Australia for a year, and I was really amazed by intensity [of the game]. From there an opportunity grew for him to “bring a piece of it [the trip and Australia] to France”.

And so, the ALFA Lions were born.

Lyon is the second largest city in France, with a population of around two million people within the greater urban area. It is in the central-eastern part of the country between Paris and Marseille.  Charles explains that “I made a request at the beginning of the year to the CNFA and asked them if there were any [Australian Rules] teams around Lyon I can play for. They answered no and told me that closest teams were in Strasbourg, Marseille and Paris. It was a good opportunity [to grow a club], because Lyon is well situated geographically. It’s the second biggest city of France so we knew that we could create something good.”

 

In this second article of the series which looks back at the recent tournament in France, the event organisers chat with Ben MacCormac (AFL Europe General Manager)  about the event from the point of view of AFL Europe. These answers were given by Ben to Alban Schieber and the event organisers, unless otherwise indicated.

This is the first in a series of questions and answers discussing the recent Euro Cup in France. The three articles will take a look at different aspects of the event.  Alban Schieber and Frederic Zohar worked tirelessly with their team to put together the event. In the afterglow of the event, here is their take on what the Euro Cup was, how it came together and how successful it was. These answers are provided by Alban Schieber, unless otherwise indicated.

The Zagreb Hawks have this year won the Croatian league for the first time since their foundation in 2006.

The 9-a-side league, featuring 3 Croatian clubs and the Downunder Dogs from Graz, Austria, has seen the Zagreb Hawks come runners-up on a number of occasions, but never clinch the big prize.

After reaching the low point of their history in 2012, struggling to field a full side and losing to the Velika Gorica Bombers (now the Dockers), Zaprude Giants and Downunder Dogs, this year was completely something different.

From October 2012, the Hawks undertook a rebuilding program and have since grown the largest playing numbers in the league. This included trading Milijan Mamić to the Dockers in return for Tomislav Cvetko - Knights captain and European Championship 2013 top scorer - and unearthing some young guns such as Josip Habljak, selected in the ruck for the All-European team from the 2013 European Championships.

The European Crusaders women’s team defeated the French Inattendues 45-26 at the Axios Euro Cup’s women’s game.

The women’s game was played in four quarters of fifteen minutes. The Crusaders, let by experienced Italian coach Mattia Sacchi, came out far stronger than the French expected, and the Inattendues, led by coach Pascal Ivorra, we not able to keep up. However, despite both sides having many players new to the game, the game was still very exciting and both sides showed great skill throughout the game. Switzerland player Erin Walter was named best on ground.

The England Dragonslayers have sent out their official review of their successful Axios 2013 Euro Cup campaign, with the following article and photos courtesy of coach Rob Fielder.

The Hamburg Dockers have broken through for their first premiership in their 10-year history in the Australian Football League Germany, defeating the Rheinland Lions 9.14 (68) to 7.13 (55).

The Hamburgers have more than just the nickname in common with AFL club Fremantle - the 2013 season seeing the first-ever Grand Final appearance for both the German and Aussie Dockers.

The Fremantle FC are a sister club to the Hamburg Dockers, having supplied them with equipment such as jumpers and balls when the side was originally set up. They also rated a mention in the media Down Under this week via this article, as their captain Casey Woodward hails from the Western Australian town of Bunbury.

With Freo being one of the AFL clubs who have been most proactive in supporting international clubs, we reckon there might be more than a few fans around the world getting in on the Purple Haze action this weekend and seeing if they can replicate the success of their German allies.

With the Euro Cup finished for another year, some teams are going home happy, some disappointed. That is the nature of any competitive sport. However, the individual performances can probably only be truly measured against the expectations of the teams themselves. In subsequent articles this may become more clear, however our starting point for a review is based on a cold, hard statistical analysis of results.

Below is a nation by nation look at performances. As an exercise, anyone interested in how this sits with the teams' hopes can read the series of preview articles published over the past few weeks, where nations listed their goals for the Axios Euro Cup.

 

The England Dragonslayers are European 9-a-side champions, after defeating hosts France in the final of the 2013 Axios Euro Cup held in Bordeaux yesterday.

The bronze went to Croatia, who defeated Italy in the third-place playoff.

Full tournament report will appear in the coming days!

It’s almost time for the players to run out onto the fields at St Medard-en-Jalles. As the opening siren gets closer, World Footy News continues its series of articles looking at the preparation and prospects of the various nations competing at this year’s Axios Euro Cup in Bordeaux. This time we look at the story of the Spanish national team. Dani Ribas from the Spanish Bulls gives us a brief rundown.                                                       

The Journey:

“The 2013 season did not see new growth, but a consolidation of the game from last year. Unfortunately there’s no league in Spain [or] new teams, although we are working on that. It’s hard to recruit new people if you cannot promise them regular matches against other teams.  Basically, we are the same squad as previous Euro Cup editions.”